Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar Joshua Busby, Intelligence Studies Project Senior Fellow Stephen Slick, and Intelligence Studies Project Program Manager Kim Nyugen recently published their poll findings in Lawfare on public attitudes towards the U.S. Intelligence Community. Polling was sponsored by the University of Texas at Austin and was conducted between 2023 and 2024. Key takeaways from the polling illustrate that a majority of Americans believe that the intelligence community is necessary and vital to the protection of citizens, with relatively few respondents believing that intelligence agencies are no longer necessary. However, partisan differences are an emerging trend in attitudes towards the intelligence community. Attitudes towards intelligence agencies’ effectiveness, respect for privacy rights, and institutional oversight were notably impacted by partisan affiliation. Busby, Slick, and Nyugen highlight that polling conducted in Summer 2025 will be key to understanding how partisan divides are continuing to change attitudes towards the intelligence community with the second Trump administration.
In partnership with UT Austin’s Asia Policy Program (APP), the Intelligence Studies Project’s (ISP) Tearline team published a report on Chinese construction of police training infrastructure in at least four countries — Nepal, Costa Rica, Samoa, and Uzbekistan — over the past 12 years. Construction of a police training facility is usually part of a wider, latticed outreach effort by...
The Strauss-Clements Intelligence Studies Project (ISP) at The University of Texas at Austin announces the 12th annual competition recognizing outstanding student research and writing on topics related to intelligence and national security. The winner of the Inman Award will receive a cash prize of $5,000, with two semifinalists each receiving a cash prize of $2,500. This competition is open to unpublished work by undergraduate...
ISP’s Tearline student research team recently published an open-source report analyzing the impact of the May 2025 drone attack by the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces on infrastructure in the vicinity of Russia’s planned naval base in Sudan. The team assessed that Russia is unlikely to realize their plans for a naval base near Port Sudan in the next 6 to 12 months due to the...